


A Strange Earth Custom

by ArwenLune



Series: Rock Happy 'verse [11]
Category: Generation Kill, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: AR-4 is at it again, AR-4's Weird Missions, Friendship, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I Swear It's Not A Euphemism, Multi, Team, Team Bonding, The Further Adventures Of Brad Colbert IN SPACE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:24:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/ArwenLune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What, no complimentary ZPMs on our pillows? What kind of honeymoon suite <i>is</i> this?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Strange Earth Custom

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like maybe the entire Rock Happy verse up to this point was one long lead-up, so that I can finally write my characters into this situation and have them act like they do. Rock Happy: the 140 000 word prologue :-)

"I.... kind of love you guys."

"..."

"Talk about the kind of thing I never expected to hear from you, Lee."

 Lt. Brittner stretched her back where she was sitting against the wall, made a little sound of satisfaction as her vertebrae popped, and sighed comfortably.

 "Enjoy it while it lasts..." she yawned, "..weddings apparently make me emotional."

 "If I had known we'd be getting married I would have worn my new BDUs," Captain Avery said mournfully. He was ratfucking MREs and made a pleased noise when he found a vanilla pound cake.

 "Yes, a note in the database would have been nice," Michèl agreed, taking off his boots and putting them next to the door. " _This planet requires you to wear your finery_. I would have had a haircut."

 "There weren't any camera's," Lee pointed out, nestling down comfortably.

 "It's the idea that counts. I wouldn't want you guys to think you weren't worth the effort on our wedding day."

 "We know you care," she said indulgently.

 "Here, have some wedding cake." Darren handed out pieces of the MRE pound cake.

 Brad sat very still, arrested in the process of unlacing his boots, a piece of cake in his hand. Watching them. He thought he'd grown used to the bizarre turns offworld missions could take. Space vampires? Okay. Listening to an orgy while playing Tetris? Right. Alien Kudzu? Sure. Needing to be a 'proper adult' (ie, married) before you were allowed to enter the sacred ruins? He'd heard weirder. Consequently ending up married to his team? Okay then. Sitting in their 'wedding hut' expected to consummate the marriage and everybody just being at ease and chatting without any apparent discomfort? _That_ was freaking him out. All the training about how to trust on your instincts to detect 'wrongness' offworld was starting to speak up.

It was a given that weird shit happened offworld, and in the seven months he'd been with the team he'd seen plenty of that. But this felt so weirdly out of character. They're all supposed to be embarrassed and uncomfortable and avoiding each other, not acting like this was kind of a nice turn of events.

 Lee extended a foot from the zipped-open bottom end of her sleeping bag and delicately poked him in the arm with her bare toe.  
"Hey, you okay?" 

 "I think there's something with the wood smoke here," Brad said carefully, focusing on his laces. There's a nice little fire burning in the hearth, with a wood sort he hasn't encountered before. "Or maybe the wedding wine."

 "Yeah?" she pulled her med bag over to where she had settled down. The Captain made a 'Please elaborate' hand gesture.

 "You're all acting..." Brad hesitated, not wanting it to sound like an accusation. "Not how I would expect you to act in this kind of situation."

 Michèl and Darren got up to check the ventilation openings of the hut while Lee fiddled with her atmospheric analyse toys. She breathed into a little tube, checked readings. Then replaced the tube and handed Brad the reader so he could breathe into it. He did so, and handed it back.  

 "How much did you drink of the wedding wine?" she asked, studying the readings.

 "About a mouthful." Looking like you were taking a hearty drink of some local beverage while actually taking a small sip was a skill you tended to learn fast on a Gate team.

 "Hmm, you're actually marginally more intoxicated than I am, though it both comes down to 'not at all'."

"Okay..."

"Vents are clear," Darren confirmed after a few moments.

The four of them shared a look, not sure what to think.

"Maybe I'm just glad that none of you looked horrified when you were told you had to claim me," Lee finally suggested brightly.

Darren looked like something just occurred to him.

"You went through this with Captain Tarson, right? I think I saw that mission report."

"Really different culture, but yeah. He was absolutely not going to claim me... until it became clear that if he didn't, a local would 'save me from the shame'."

"Of _course_ we claimed you," Michèl said. Despite the weirdness of it all, Brad agreed. He hadn't even hesitated. "What's a few polyandrous wedding vows between team?"

"Exactly, platonic husband number two. Or.. three. I think Darren might be my number one _and_ two."

The Captain flashed a grin.

Brad thought he got it, then. That it was about belonging, about unhesitatingly being part of something. About the affirmation that they were _team_ , and that what aliens thought of what that closeness meant didn't matter. Let the Ruklok people - or whatever they're called - think what they would about what was going on inside the hut. That didn't affect what was between them.

"So, shall we consummate our new bond with a crossword or two?" Darren said, brandishing his ever-present crossword book.

"I brought travel scrabble."

"Ohh, even better. But no French words. You always throw in French words."

"It is your problem for speaking only one language."

"I speak Militarese."

"Then use that, _mon mari_."

"Everything-goes scrabble? I'm so in," Lee said, shuffling up, sitting tailor-style inside her sleeping bag.

 Brad put his boots away, tossed another log on the fire, and took up the fourth place in their little circle.

 

***

They slept side by side. Lee with her back against the far wall and her knees pulled up, curled up comfortably and - not coincidentally - creating enough distance that Michèl couldn't throw an arm over her in his sleep. It was preferred over the alternative, which was a startled elbow to the ribs. She had sharp elbows.

Michèl was half on his stomach, half draped over his pack. He tried to lie still, so the hot water bottle in the small of his back wouldn't slide off. Brad wondered how long until Michèl decided that his offworld missions days were behind him. Lee wasn't going to ground him... yet.

Next to him Darren, sleeping the sleep of a military man who had spent the better part of the past fifteen years sleeping in a narrow rack. Flat on his back, arms folded across his stomach. Snoring a little.

Brad was closest to the door. He'd just banked the fire and checked the ventilation openings again. Then he watched his team sleep for a while, idly wondering what kind of impression the villagers must have gotten of marriage among the Lanteans. If nothing else, then that it was a very upbeat arrangement. There was no way the uproarious laughter and the cries of 'You made that _up_! There's no _way_ that's a real acronym!' hadn't been clearly audible outside.

It hadn't taken long for the Scrabble game to devolve into a military alliance to beat Michèl. (who spoke seven language, which had lead to a discussion in itself, because if you could be bilingual, would you then be trilingual, quadrilingual, pentalingual, hexalingual, heptalingual, octalingual? Michèl had watched this discussion with amusement and finally ended it with the word 'polyglot')

Darren, Lee and Brad had thrown in the best acronym from across their three respective branches of the military. Lee had started with the always-popular-on-missions _SWAG_ (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess), Brad had posed the Anthill favourite _GNTDI_ (Get Nerds To Do It) and then Darren had swept them off the board with _BOHICA,_ which had made everybody snort. Well, what can you do when you play Scrabble with a linguist?

 

***

The next morning they were allowed to enter the sacred ruins. And while there were no complimentary ZPMs on their pillows ("What kind of honeymoon suite _is_ this?") it turned out that the social scientists would be able to get some quite fascinated insights into the Ancients from the ruins. So they agreed that all in all, there were worse ways to get married.

Their walk back to the Stargate was spent discussing what they should enter into the database under this planet. Darren had just suggested the understated 'The Ruklok people value fine clothing and strong team bonds' when they stepped, still chuckling, home through the Stargate. 


End file.
